For fans of cruising and heavy metal music, there is news that a special concert will be held on Majesty of the Seas that will sail Monday, January 24, 2011.  The cruise is called  "70000 Tons Of Metal" and has been dubbed "the world's biggest floating heavy metal festival".  This themed cruise will feature a number of metal acts.  These include..

• agent steel
• amon amarth
• death angel
• epica
• exodus
• fear factory
• finntroll
• forbidden
• moonspell
• obituary
• raven
• saxon
• sodom
• sonata arctica
• stratovarius
• swashbuckle
• testament
• trouble
• uli jon roth
• witchburner

More bands will be announced and a total of 40 acts have been promised.

When the Dreamworks alliance was announced last month, many Royal Caribbean fans were afraid that their favorite ships would be turned into a giant floating shrine to Shrek and his friends.  

In a blog post by Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein, he confirmed that if you have no desire to experience any of the Dreamworks entertainment, you won't have to.  All of it will be isolated in designated areas and like any other form of entertainment on the ship, you will need to seek it out to experience it.

On the other hand, some readers expressed concern that the DWA presence onboard Allure of the Seas, Oasis of the Seas, Liberty of the Seas and Freedom of the Seas will create too much of kid-centric, theme park style environment.

For guests who are not interested in this additional offering, it will be just as possible as before on these same four ships to have a fantastic Royal Caribbean experience taking advantage of all of the entertainment, programming, culinary and destination experiences that are already so appealing.

The news is not shocking, given that Disney ships, world renown for their characters, make it very possible to cruise with them and never see their characters.  The announcement by Goldstein is in response to a vocal outcry across the internet by concerned cruisers who wanted to know the limits of the Dreamworks team up.

Travel and Leisure magazine has published their list of the World 's Best Awards including the category of large-ship cruise lines.  T+L readers were given a survey to fill out between December 2009 and March 2010 to rank the cruise lines. For cruise lines, readers rated them based on these categories

• cabins
• food
• service
• itineraries/destinations
• activities
• value
• families (optional)

Here was the results:

1. Crystal Cruises 90.47
2. Regent Seven Seas 89.86
3. Oceania Cruises 86.65
4. Disney Cruise Line 84.93
5. Azamara Cruises 83.91
6. Cunard 83.35
7. Celebrity Cruises 81.49
8. Holland America Line 81.08
9. Royal Caribbean International 80.92
10. Princess Cruises 80.38

The good news is Azmara Cruises, which is owned by Royal Caribbean, ranked fifth.  The bad news is Royal Caribbean ranked ninth.  If you want to spin this in a more positive light, while Royal Caribbean was ranked ninth, competitor Carnival Cruise Line did not make the top 10. In addition, the difference between ninth place and fifth place is barely a few points.

If you've got a cruise coming up on Freedom of the Seas, then this is your week as we have even more tips for your next cruise aboard Freedom of the Seas, as provided by CruiseMates.com

1. Explore the Promenade
2. Sample the Cuisine
3. Experience the Entertainment and Nightlife
4. Activities for Kids

Here is one of the tips, explore the promenade

The Promenade is longer than on other RCI ships, and is similar to a large suburban mall. Three miles of corridors connect the public rooms, and are well marked so passengers don't get hopelessly lost. Boutiques that are on the other Voyager-class ships are on Freedom. The Royal Promenade has special lighting effects for the Mardi Gras-style parades. The Royal Promenade features several spots for snacks and has a book shop, The Book Nook.

Royal Caribbean is testing out a new option on its European based ships.  For $35, you can opt for a "late departure".  Rather than hurry in the early morning to be off the ship, you can pay extra and stay onboard until the mid afternoon. If you opt into the program, you will be able to stay on the ship until 90 minutes prior to its next sailing.  The cost is $35 for adults and $17.50 for children.

Now available on all eight Royal Caribbean ships in Europe, the program allows passengers to stay aboard the vessels through lunchtime and into the afternoon on disembarkation day instead of a traditional early-morning departure. Passengers who sign up for the program can stay on their ship until 90 minutes prior to its next sailing.

Passengers who stay onboard later will have access to all the public areas on the ship as well as select restaurants but will need to be out of their stateroom by 9am.

The Alaska Cruise Association, a group that Royal Caribbean is part of, has dropped its lawsuit against the state of Alaska over a cruise ship passenger tax.  The bill passed by Alaska lawmakers this past Friday cuts the head tax from $46 to $34.50 and allows deeper offsets for ships stopping in at least one of two ports. It was signed by Governor Sean Parnell last week, and hailed as both as a way to settle the litigation and attract more ships and tourists.

In addition, cruise lines will be reimbursed an additional amount each time a ship calls in Juneau, Ketchikan or both.

The cruise association had placed at least partial blame on the tax and Alaska's regulatory climate for an expected loss of ships, and about 140,000 passengers, this season.

The tax was voted into law by Alaska residents in 2006 and was highly unpopular among the cruise lines and even argued to be illegal as it discriminates against the larger ships that carry more than 250 passengers.  Experts blame much of the relocation of cruise ships away from Alaska stemming from the tax increase.  

The cruise market in Alaska is heating up as cruise lines are showing higher demand for the cruise location than in the recent past.  Royal Caribbean gave a positive assessment of the Alaska market in a report two months ago.  Daniel Hanrahan, president of Celebrity Cruises (Royal Caribbean operates Celebrity Cruises) said, "The Alaska product, where we are once again operating three ships, is also performing well and doing better than ... last year".  

Competitor Carnival reported that "Alaska and other exotic locations," are helping drive increased revenue in Carnival Cruise Line's North American brands.  In addition, Alaska has seen "significantly higher year-over-year pricing," according to David Bernstein, chief financial officer of Carnival Corp.

Last year one million cruise ship passengers came to Juneau, but this year only about 860,000 are expected after Carnival and others relocated ships to other destinations, citing the head tax as one reason for the decline.

The country of Greece is trying to lure back companies looking to invest in the country by cutting bureaucratic red tape that can stall investment plans in the past.  Greece, a country mired by debt, wants to make things easier on companies like Royal Caribbean.  

Earlier this year, Royal Caribbean had plans to use the port of Piraeus as a hub in Greece, but after repeated strikes by unions left thousands of passengers and cruise ships stranded at ports, Royal Caribbean said last week it was dropping plans to use Greece's Piraeus Port as a hub.

Greece is seeking foreign investors to help spur its economy, expected to shrink by about 4 percent this year as it implements a draconian austerity programme to deal with the country's debt crisis.  But it carries an unenviable reputation as one of the most difficult places to do business in the western world due to a web of regulations, restrictive laws and combative unions.

American Idol fans may remember Mandisa as a talented contestant from season five of the popular show.  She made the top 10 finalists, before being voted off the show.  Her new tour will bring her to perform aboard Majesty of the Seas in November 2010.  From November 8 through 12, 2010, the 29 year old from Tennessee will take the stage aboard Majesty of the Seasas part of her current 2010 tour.

Mandisa has turned her songs to sing gospel now and she joins other acts such as Newsboys, Jeremy Camp and the David Crowder Band aboard "The Music Boat 2010" tour, which has a Gospel theme to it.  In addition to the musical acts, Major League Baseball players Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers and Matt Diaz of the Atlanta Braves will also be on board for this themed cruise.

The Majesty of the Seas cruise is a four night cruise out of Miami, Florida and will visit Nassau, Bahamas, CocoCay® and Key West, Florida.  If gospel music and cruising is your thing, perhaps this cruise is of interest to you.

With huge new ships like Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, new technology has been the solution for Royal Caribbean to make the experience onboard for guests as easy as possible.  Royal Caribbean CIO Bill Martin spoke with InformationWeek magazine about five innovations Royal Caribbean has used to make the experience better for guests.

1. Facial Recognition Software
   When you board the ship for the first time, a high resolution photo is taken of you and this photo is used for security as well as for merchandise systems such as the point of sale system.  Facial recognition software allows computers to categorize photos taken all over the ship by Royal Caribbean photographers for easy pick up later.
2. Shape Recognition Cameras
   At each of the 24 restaurants on the ship, shape-recognition cameras count the number of people seated and if any are waiting.  Royal Caribbean works to ensure there is no waiting at its restaurants.
3. Interactive Media
   Remember the shape recognition cameras from the previous entry?  Well that data on restaurant crowds gets sent in real-time, in the form of red-yellow-green signals, to 300 digital signs around the ship, so that people can self-select the least-crowded restaurants.
4. Wireless Everywhere
   There's Wi-Fi internet coverage onboard, along with wireless wristband for children to allow parents to track their kids movements on an iPhone app.  The specially equipped iPhones are for rent during cruises.
5. Real-Time Analysis
   Royal Caribbean is using the data it receives during the cruise to help make decisions "on the fly" and bring attention to problems as they occur, not after.

Royal Caribbean has more real-time data than ever before because every point of sale terminal and booking system is networked, so analysts can know what’s selling well, what services are being under-used, plus the demographics of who’s on board. Analysts onshore have started crunching that data while the cruise is sailing. Combine that with the interactive media on the ships, and Royal Caribbean has a chance to put customized offers in front of people, say for a particular type of spa treatment that has more openings than usual, to a person most likely to want such a treatment, delivered direct to their interactive TV.